Atlas Shrugged and the Philosopher's Stone
by autopolydidact
Summary: Dagny Taggart gets an owl from Hogwarts. Meanwhile, both the United States government and Voldemort are gaining power.
1. The Room With the Smallest Window

The fierce gale blazed behind thin sheets of glass, through which a young girl stared into the white sky. Earlier in the morning a beautiful grey owl had briefly perched on her window-sill purposefully - the more odd as they were at the peak of a snowstorm - before swooping out of sight. Dagny Taggart stood at her bedroom window, which wasn't high enough on the wall to provide a good view of the sky, and so she just stared into the horizon; nothing ever happened here, she would dream of a world far away where things happened. Saturday mornings were always the height of boredom. She was tall for a ten-year-old, and her habit of standing up, even in the presence of adequate seating, led her to be mocked by her short, elder brother James. Sisters were supposed to love their brothers, beneath all the rivalry and annoyance and friction. Dagny didn't.

James sat outside of Dagny's bedroom door, reading a news rag, waiting for Dagny to emerge. He wanted desperately for Dagny to see his new suit and tie, for her to envy it, the present he got for failing his most recent maths test. James never got presents for good grades, so he stopped putting in the effort. Dagny never got presents, and she didn't care because always found a way to get the presents she wanted; they were all books, and she'd never cared for smart clothes, not at this age. James thought Dagny was stupid.

"Dag! Open up! I want to show you something," when he'd gotten bored of waiting.

"What is it Jim?" asked Dagny, leaving the window. The bright of the snow had burned into her retinas, and she blinked hard. She opened the door.

James puffed out his chest, trying to match Dagny's height. "D'you like it, Sis? It's my new suit because every person deserves to feel good about himself. I learnt that from the newspaper that father has delivered. You should read the newspaper, Dag."

"The sleeves are too short. It's a nice material, I suppose. But your arms look ridiculous," Dagny said, not too attentively. "I didn't mean it like that Jim, I'm sorry," as James frowned. "Listen, um, I don't know anything about suits." This wasn't true; her friend Francisco D'Anconia had once shown her how to tailor a jacket, with calculations and everything. But she saw no reason to let James know it.

James rid his face of the frown and smirked. "When you're older you might be able to get one, I'm sure of it. You will understand what it's like to feel grown-up and clever, too." He congratulated himself on that sentence, although he wasn't certain why. The corner of something poked him in the ribs, through the suit which actually wasn't at all comfortable. "Oh, and another thing. There was mail for you this morning -"

Dagny immediately frowned; why hadn't Jim given this to her earlier? And it must have been yesterday's as there was no visit from the postman today. A whole day! She wondered what the little rat had been doing with the letter in the meanwhile, and if she saw that it'd been opened...

James reached into his left pocket and brought it out, "- and it has queer green ink and it must be from someone dreadfully stupid because green ink on yellow paper isn't at all proper." Dagny snatched it out of his hand before he could catch a firm grasp on it. "Hey! That's rude, I was just giving it to you."

Dagny asked why he'd waited a whole day to hand it over. "It only got here this morning! It was on the floor when I woke up and so I decided to do my loving sister the courtesy of -"

"James, -" she rarely used his name, because she didn't consider it to be worth pronouncing the longer vowel sound, "- no-one's come to the door this morning." And then she merely sighed and dismissed him, because this was a letter and she had to read it. It could be important, especially at this time of year and right before starting her new school. Before she could break the wax seal, however, she found herself staring at the emerald green address:

Miss D. Taggart,

The Room With the Smallest Window,

Second Floor,

Taggart House,

Albany,

NY

This was, of course, odd. Dagny thought she was the only one who knew that her window was the smallest. From the front of the house it looked identical to the bathroom window on the opposite side. But Dagny found out that it was an optical trick, last Summer when she and Francisco had spent a whole weekend doing measurements from the courtyards, using tripods and clever arithmetic that she had stayed up all night in order to understand. The description was the first odd thing.

The second was the fact that an address would be so specific; the third that it had no stamp. It must have been hand-delivered; but in this weather they could be certain no pedestrian would pass the house with a mere letter and depart unannounced. Faintly considering that it was a silly trick by her brother, while doubting he was competent enough to fabricate such an attractive letter, she bit her lip and broke the seal.

A large letter 'H' in a shield decorated with four unusual animals in quadrants sat atop the page; this matched the scarlet seal. In the same green ink and with calligraphy that made you want not to attend to anything else:

Dear Miss Taggart,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on the first of September. We await your owl by the end of July.

Yours Sincerely,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,

Deputy Headmaster

Dagny stood, mildly confused, while she glanced at the second sheet of paper - no: parchment - in her other hand, containing a list of books she hadn't heard of, and objects she had never seen in any shop. This would make a surreal trick, she thought. Jim hadn't the imagination to dream it. And she reread the academy: 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'? That was... preposterous, just irrational. To admit the supernatural was to deny the natural, which was to deny oneself. Something Dagny would never do, although she never thought it in those words.

It was certain that Dagny had never applied to this school herself. So why had this person - Dumbledore, that was a strange name - sent this letter? She found that she had walked slowly to her door, and her hand was already at the handle. She followed her thoughts downstairs, to the room adjacent to the kitchen.

James' eyes flashed greedily at the letter in her hand. "What was it, that letter... Dag?" he asked. Dagny focused her eyes across the breakfast table to James, and carefully folded the letter, placing it in the pocket of her gown.

She faced him, and told him that she had been accepted to a school, caring to add no finer detail. All of James' applications to private schools the previous year had been unsuccessful, at which point he denounced private education as immoral. He looked back across the table, knowing better than to comment, and asked the name of the school.

"Where on Earth is 'Hogwarts'? What a silly name! It must be at least five hundred years old, full with boring old traditions and old books. Is that it, Dag? Do you leave for boarding this Summer?" he said, with a mock sadness.

"Don't be a prat, Jim. You know I didn't apply to any 'Hogwarts'. No, I have no idea where it is. Whoever sent this, assuming that it has a location, had not the competence to supply a return address. It could be in France for all I know. They want me to send them an owl."

Jim looked suspicious. "Then how did they know of you? An owl, Dag?"

She shook her head. "I will not think any more of it." I can't, she thought. But she kept the letter in her pocket and turned to leave. She was ready to forget about the whole business of the letter, if she could. Before her right foot could touch the first step of the staircase, a single knock at the door punctuated her motion. At the same instant, the winds outside died into a vacuum of silence.

She froze into place. After a full second of silence, she lowered her foot to the ground, from where she had held it above the stair, and turned around.

"Mother?" James half-wondered aloud, half-called to Dagny.

"No car back," she uttered dismissively. Before the visitor could lose enough patience to strike the door a second time, and in this of all weather, Dagny moved again. Striding toward the door in spite of a dozen wordless inhibitions, with a sharp sense of purpose, she took a breath and opened it.

A tall, thin young man in a well-made suit and a heavy overcoat stood on the doorstep. His hair was neat and there was not a flake of snow upon his body. Conscious of her own appearance, she pulled her own black gown across her pyjamas and stood up just a bit straighter. He appeared in no rush to enter the house. Dagny noticed that the air directly around him was perfectly still, although the whole sky was still a white haze, suggesting the snow that was still streaming ferociously before the high brick perimeter of the estate. Noting not fully but somewhere in her mind the absence of cold air pouring through the wide-open door, as it surely should be, she made no rush to permit him entrance, as he seemed comfortable. She expected him to speak, and he did:

"Young Miss Taggart, is it?" his voice was a warm tenor, which was to the ear what mulled wine was to the mouth. "My name is Martin Ferris. I am from a school here in the United States for certain, ah, gifted children." He looked in the direction that James was sitting, as if seeing through the wall. "Perhaps, I should come in?"

Dagny's mind considered this quickly. This was, at least, an interesting Saturday. She really ought not let anyone she didn't know into the house; mother and father were both away from the house for who-could-know how long it would become, due to the frankly unseasonable snow. Francisco and his father were to arrive tomorrow night, although for similar reasons Dagny doubted they would make it. The family cook who was more of an Aunt, Arabella Figg, had left this morning for her - early - Summer vacation. It was therefore just Dagny and James in the house. But she made a decision.

"Do," Dagny allowed curtly. She moved away and Martin Ferris stepped over the threshold, the violent gale and snow returning to the space he left behind him, as if it had waited for his departure. That was impossible, of course. As he closed the door behind him, and removed his coat, Dagny looked at James, who turned away from them both and buried his head in his newspaper, making sure the paper's name was visible. Neither Dagny nor Martin noticed this as she led him through to the living room.

It had not yet occurred to Dagny upon that day to light the fireplace; she considered doing so but didn't want to turn her back on the stranger. Instead, she asked as they both sat opposite each other: "What is the name of the school you run?" She dimly wondered whether or not she should expect to hear the name 'Hogwarts'.

The man replied, "I'm the admissions officer for the United States Academy of Paranormal Sciences. We are funded by the government to promote the research of supernatural science. We have intelligence that you have the qualifications to attend our school. As a United States citizen this is completely free." The man paused, and smiled.

"Excuse me," intoned Dagny, "but I don't believe I have any interest in attending an academy of paranormal sciences, whatever they are, at all. Nor one that I have qualified for without knowing my qualifications."

Martin replied politely, "We are run under the United States government, and obtain our grant by gravity of a series of, shall we say, useful photographs. However, paranormal science is not what we do. Our students and our teachers all have the ability to perform magic by the fortune of being witches and wizards. Miss Taggart, - may I call you Dagny? - Dagny, it my duty to tell you, here and now, that you are a witch." The man sat back in his chair and rested his poise.

She didn't know what to say. It would seem ridiculous if it didn't seem to make a distant sort of sense. The sort of sense she would dispel in two seconds once she'd snapped out of this queer mood. Magic doesn't exist, magic is a ridiculous idea, and this is just one huge ridiculous trick, or a person's delusion, a person with too much time, but this is not sense. None of what she had heard was sensible, except that the government should fund an academy of 'paranormal science', which she thought seemed perfectly congruent. The letter; and now this man, sitting there with a gay smile. Hogwarts and the Academy.

Dagny had a mind to throw the man into the street, reclining as he was there, having announced that I'm a witch and now he's just sitting as if I'm to just believe it. Instead, she asked, "Is your school related to -" she paused only slightly to recall the full title, "- the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" The smile left the man's eyes, but not his mouth, which retained an unnatural curve.

"Dagny, Hogwarts is an old Wizarding school in Britain. It used to be quite acclaimed. It sends letters to British children who bear magic, stating that they can attend. Hogwarts is, however, a private school. It does not offer the kind of broad education you find at our state academy. Our education, unlike Hogwarts, is fully regulated, and although magic is not known to the wider society, we operate strictly in accordance with our government's values of safety, control and fairness. And so, why do you speak of Hogwarts?"

"They sent me a letter, this morning." Dagny offered.

"That should be quite impossible," he chuckled, with the same smile which appeared quite threatening now. "Only British children receive the Hogwarts owl. Oh yes, they deliver by owl. Quite impersonal. At our Academy every child receives a visit in person in order to allay any fears and soothe any misgivings, as we are sensitive to the sensibilities of every child. But now, perhaps, I offer to you some proof of my magic?"

Dagny remembered that it could still be a trick; she hadn't seen anything properly unbelievable so far today, just unusual and improbable things. "Go ahead," she said.

The man took a few seconds to stand up. When he found the correct pocket containing a shiny wooden stick, he withdrew it and held it at the height of his chest, in front of his body. He turned to the fireplace. He flicked his hand vertically five times, once, twice, thrice... on the fourth he took a breath; on the fifth he announced an incantation: "Incendio".

A thin white spark shot out of the wand at the hearth. It struck a large log of wood in the fireplace, which immediately was enrobed in bright yellow flames. The man smiled delicately and turned to Dagny. "That was a simple spell to cast fire. We do not teach this spell to younger students, you would find your wand unable to cast it, but it serves as a good enough illustration of our abilities." He flicked his wand back at the fire, and the flames disappeared.

Dagny felt dimly unsurprised, which was itself more surprising, but only slightly. This man... he can do things that are not natural. But, can I? Mr. Ferris appeared to have anticipated this, his eyes twinkled, and he spoke: "May I present to you, Dagny, your wand. We provide each of our students with a safe, regulation wand. It's yours, Dagny". He reached into another pocket and withdrew another stick. It looked identical to the man's, the same shiny wood, except it was noticeably shorter. She reached and accepted it.

Her skin touched the polished mahogany. And nothing happened.

Martin frowned. "Usually when we deliver our wands to their witches there is some sign that the two have connected, an indication that the child accepts their place at our school. Your place at our Academy is compulsory, I am afraid, Miss Taggart." So it was back to 'Miss Taggart'. "I can only suggest that you are in defiance against your abilities as a witch. Don't be shy. Our records indicate that you are as deserving of magic as I am. Show it." He smiled again.

Dagny did not like this man. Every word of his felt like subtle violence. This school was compulsory, was it, it is not amongst my magical abilities to secede? Well, she thought angrily, I do not permit compulsion.

And a loud cracking noise came from the regulation wand, and it deformed beneath her grasp, losing its polished finish in an instant, glowing bright and white. Martin screamed for her to drop it, but scared and confused, Dagny could merely retain her grip, and it snapped in half in a final burst of an iridescent light that whipped out at the room like lightning.

Regulation wands were not supposed to do that.

When the spectacle had finished, and Dagny was holding two dead pieces of wood, James entered the room having heard the loud noise. He stared wide-eyed, wordlessly and the two of them. Martin merely pointed his wand at James, whispered hoarsely, and James left the room again, absently. And he looked back at Dagny, who was gently swaying, her eyes on her hand. She looked up into his eyes without emotion. "Mr Ferris?"

He stared back into Dagny's cold gaze. Then, he burst out laughing, not happily, but as if he had been the subject of a hilarious practical joke. "Why Dagny! Ha ha! What an odd way to... illustrate... your agreement with our terms. Y-you'll need another wand I suppose. Or p-perhaps that will not be n-necessary. Gee, this has n-never happened before! You got a letter from Hogwarts, you said? If y-you have a s-sch-scholarship elsewhere, y...you may be exempt from a compulsory United States education. Uh, if that's even possible that Hogwarts sent you a letter."

"I have no means to send an owl to Hogwarts," Dagny said.

"What? Oh yes, of course." He reached into yet another pocket and brought out a small egg. His hand stopped trembling with his fingers around the pale egg. "This will hatch in, say t-twelve hours. Take it, it's yours, we'll call it compensation for the wand incident. You tell the owl who needs the letter and it takes it, clever birds, clever owls." He handed it to Dagny cautiously. When it didn't blow up in her hand, he began to leave the house.

"I'll be off now Dagny. Awfully nice to meet you. Perhaps we'll see each other again. Good luck with your life, and your egg. If there's anything I can do." He opened the door for himself gestured his wand to the outside, which made the weather halt temporarily.

Dagny followed him to the door. "Is there something wrong with my magic?" she asked.

Martin put on his overcoat. He chuckled just once more, more faintly and with a tone of seriousness this time, stepping back into the snow. He sighed, "Who is John Galt?" And he disappeared, and the weather resumed his place once again.


	2. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Chapter II - Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Dagny stood still at the door for a while. The encounter had caused a fundamental shift in the way in which she saw the world. Assuming that it was still not a trick, which seemed less likely with every thought, there could be an uncountable number of things she thought were true, which weren't. I had better start learning then, she thought.

Calmly, she walked back to the kitchen where she knew James would be. He had a distant look on his face, and his sight slowly moved and engaged Dagny's face as her soft footsteps truncated his daze. "Oh, hello Dagny," he chimed with an uncharacteristic softness. "Did you see it, a man stopped by for you. He seemed nice." His strange mood, which appeared as placidity painted roughly over confusion, began to fade as he became more aware of the room.

"I'll fetch you some coffee." Dagny felt momentarily endeared to his stupefied lack of hostility and allowed herself to care for him, just this once. _Where does Aunt Arabella keep the coffee pots and things?_ she wondered, and she set about making lunch for them both, grateful for the distraction. James moved himself to the table, without a word.

It was now noon, the sky was bright but the thick of cloud still covered the atmosphere. Snow blasted the estate. Dagny sat eating one of the sandwiches she had made for herself and James; he sat across from her and had resumed full self-awareness, although remained quiet, not touching the newspaper on the table beside his left arm. He still hadn't a memory of what Mr Ferris had been here for: Martin must have done that to him, somehow. Dagny briefly considered how glad she felt that he had left.

The two Taggart children sat silently. Silence did not often fall between them. Their father Philip James Taggart and their mother Rose were two perfectly loving parents, and they each cared for their children as much as any family did. Despite this, Dagny's mother Rose found it hard connecting with her daughter, as no activity suited to a young lady, like fashion and society and culture, interested Dagny. She had firmly resolved to make a lady of her distant daughter who cared too little.

Philip never really saw either of his children, as the busy manager of Taggart Transcontinental, a family railroad that had been inherited from father to son for many generations. The network stretched across the United States, from New York to Olympia, across the Southern oil fields, and right down into the newly People's State of Mexico. James was in line to inherit his father's place at the company.

"Are you going to boarding school, Dag?" asked James, after a long while.

"I don't know," she replied. "I'll have to think about it, I suppose. I have plenty of time before I need to decide." She also knew that mother would want a say, but declined from mentioning this. Dagny thought, with a faint sadness, that she would be able to argue against any of mother's decisions, anyway.

A loud explosion, like the door of a massive furnace being blasted open, screamed through the air. Dagny winced in her mind, while her face barely retained composure. The sound settled.

Dagny sighed.

* * *

Three knocks resonated throughout the room, just as Dagny rose from her seat, briskly depositing her plate in the kitchen. The faint, blurred echo of the final knock recurred unnaturally and patiently through the room with the acoustic hollowness of wood, and Dagny walked to the door for a second time. Unlike at the time of the previous visitor, the weather still blared audibly outside. Just like before, Dagny felt a wave of dread as her hand made contact with the door handle. Again, she pulled it open without hesitation.

There was a large crater of snowless ground, not twenty feet from the house on the yard, with a thin flat path carved out of the white blanket toward the house and up the steps, to where the concrete floor was sheltered by the veranda. Another tall, thin man - who looked much older than Mr Ferris - knelt away from the door, wearing a strange pair of dark glasses that covered half of his face, unbuckling a hefty wooden device underneath his long feet that resembled a small ironing-board strapped to them. He wore thick dark boots lined with a tawny fur, and a dark red velvet robe, both of which matched a Russian hat which was deep crimson, with the same light brown fur. He had a long beard and long hair, both of which possessed, in patches and twists and turns, an odd combination of vivid golden-red and bright silver that would appear white if not for the snow. Having freed himself, he stepped off the device and pulled his goggles above his eyes. Another pair of crescent spectacles adorned a searching pair of blue eyes that met hers with intense purpose. An amiable smile slowly appeared across the man's face, at which point Dagny noticed an icicle descending from the man's nose. She wanted to chuckle at the sight but instead returned his smile, and Dagny shook his extended hand.

"Miss Dagny Taggart, I presume? I am Albus Dumbledore." His face was rosy with frost on his exposed hair, and his lips lacked the dexterity provided by being warm, but his voice was friendly. He stood for a moment, and looked at her oddly, with what she registered as paternal wist, and continued: "I have middle names but it's too cold for middle names. May we speak indoors? I would invite you into my sleigh but, alas, I lost it up the Statue of Liberty's left sleeve. At least I knew I was in the correct state," he sighed reflectively.

"Come in," she invited, and they went on through to the kitchen where James sat, after Albus had made his foot-device vanish with a swipe of his wand.

"I'm here with Mr Dumbledore, we're going to talk. Uh - if you hear any loud noises, I don't expect you should worry." She looked at Dumbledore who had taken off his hat, and he nodded approvingly. James nodded back at them, mute and bemused; he resumed reading his paper.

"Your parents are not here to join us?" inquired Dumbledore, as they walked. Dagny confirmed it, explaining that they'd been unable to return as planned due to the weather. "Then we shall have to proceed without them," he replied, "Although, given they would have desired a presence at our conversation, I grant you will communicate my apologies." She agreed.

Entering the room, Dagny regretted not having lit the fire, and that she remained in her night clothes. An idea hit her, and she said: "Albus Dumbledore, from Hogwarts? Could you cast a fire?" she gestured toward the fireplace, and he paused for a second, but then inclined his head and obliged. Without touching the wand he had stowed inside one of his pockets, the fireplace roared with dancing yellow flames.

Dumbledore walked past the armchair Mr Ferris had sat in until he was three feet away from the fire, and gestured toward the rug beneath their feet. "May we sit here?" he asked, and she came and sat across from him, on the floor. Dumbledore did the same, which looked odd because he was so tall. He casually warmed his hands with the heat.

The fire flickered in his eyes and he took a slow breath before starting: "You have already been visited by a wizard, Dagny." It was a statement but he expected a response.

Knowing this, Dagny replied: "Yes. Martin Ferris came this morning, from a United States magic Academy, and he... offered, or pressed upon me, a place. He lit the fire before you, to show that it was real. It didn't look like I could easily refuse, but I accidentally broke the wand somehow, and he seemed frightened, and he left very quickly." Recalling the egg he had given her, she withdrew it carefully from her pocket, and placed it on the warm floor near the fireplace. "He gave me that owl egg so that I could contact you at Hogwarts," she explained.

Dumbledore glanced at the egg, and then peered mournfully over his spectacles at her. "I suspected as much. Long has the national Academy in the United States been insistent in its grasps for power. Even now, twice yearly, I send owls of refusal to offers of the highest tenure. Your Muggle government - Muggles are non-magical humans - is intricately tied to the Academy, and none of your politicians knows it. You can imagine the deformed kind of power that implies. In spite of what you saw today, Dagny, they will not let you come to Hogwarts without a fight. Which is where I have some... explaining to do."

"Right," said Dagny, confused, "Only children from Britain attend Hogwarts. Why have I been selected to study there? And why should I happen to have magic? My brother doesn't... or doesn't seem to."

Dumbledore allowed a brief silence to follow. Then he stated, without any emotion whatever: "He is not your brother, and you were not born in America. You are on our list at Hogwarts because you resided in England at your birth. Your mother was a Muggle-born witch, an immigrant from Russia who, after being imprisoned for her deviant political writings, used her magic to escape. The research we've been able to do indicates that she was pregnant with you around the time she left Russia; therefore your father, most likely, was left behind. She died while giving birth to you."

Dagny paused for a moment to consider the emotions that she felt. Her heart moaned at the thought that the mother she'd never known, had experienced such struggle only for her life to end before it had truly started again, and her she had to blink, to stop her eyes losing the excess water they had gained while listening to Dumbledore. At the same time, oddly, she felt relief - relief that her lack of affection for her family didn't have to be some unassailable fault of her own. Perhaps she simply did not belong. "Thank you for being able to tell me this much." It was a great deal to believe, thought she, but a great deal to invent, too. "However there is that which I still do not know. How did I come to be with the Taggart family? I - I never even suspected that I was... and there's no reason why they'd adopt a child, from England of all places."

The old wizard saw the strain what he'd told her had put in her chest, and added a faint smile in admiration of the ten-year-old's strength. Dagny registered it, and felt a bit less like she would just stop breathing at any moment. Dumbledore spoke: "You were brought to an orphanage in London by the nurse who delivered you. The nurse had been a friend of your mother's, and she named you, I suspect after your mother. Three months later, the Taggart family visited London. I also visited you, just before that time; at Hogwarts we've the ability to detect the birth of every magical child, given that the act of birth is a unique event, producing a detectable signal when a magical child takes its first breath. We can trace it to anywhere in Great Britain. I wanted to make sure you had a family, so I arranged the adoption. It was a good fortune for each party; your mother had wanted a daughter, but they had failed consistently in their attempts to re-conceive, for over a year. By spectacular coincidence your father, Mr Taggart - while being a Muggle - knew of the existence of magic, so the adoption seemed both a great convenience and success. It happens that a close friend and confidant of Mr Taggart, Domingo d'Anconia of d'Anconia Copper, is a wizard, rare in his place as a Muggle celebrity. That is how you came to live here in America. It is my desire that you leave America for Britain as soon as possible, with magical accompaniment, where you can stay with a friend, until the start of term."

Dagny looked into the fire while he allowed her to process the information. After the silence she said, "Well, I'm glad I know the full story." That was an understatement, and she also thought, would this mean Francisco is a wizard, too? She saw, in a flash, the image: she and Francisco at Hogwarts, maybe she wouldn't even be going there alone! Then she remembered that he was a year above Dagny. He would already be at his high school, wherever he was studying now. "I know Francisco. He's visiting us tomorrow night with Mr d'Anconia. Is he a wizard?"

Dumbledore was taken aback by the question, but replied: "Quite probably, yes. There are a few non-magical children born to magical parents - we call them Squibs - but it is most likely he is a wizard."

Dagny wished Francisco could have been coming with her to Hogwarts, or Eddie Willers, the only other friend she had spent real time with; he could not be a wizard too though, surely. "I don't want to go to the Academy of Paranormal Science. I'm worried, though, how my parents will react to my going a quarter of the way around the globe for school."

Dumbledore smiled appreciatively. "Your parents and I had a brief discussion on the topic, all those years ago. They were quite content with the idea that, one day, you might be able to come to Hogwarts. I mentioned that we would assist you in acquiring all the books and things you would need. That could be the first task, upon our arrival at London. I would quite like to invite you to journey back with me this evening, Dagny, were it not that your parents would then return to a missing child. Could you expect them home soon?"

Dagny opened her mouth to respond, when the doorbell chimed.


End file.
